CHAPTER EIGHT
By the time Ben got to the pub that night, he was feeling sick with anger and some indefinable emotion he refused to examine. He spotted the same crowd of protestors at the same table, and they called for him to come across and join them. He shook his head and took his beer to an empty table on the other side of the bar. Ironically, what suited his mood—to be alone and miserable—also suited his cover; he didn’t want to seem to be too eager to associate with the enemy. Then a man appeared at his table, carrying another beer and some crisps, and the idea of associating with the enemy suddenly became much more appealing. Ben’s immediate thought was to wish Sir Nikolas bloody Mikkelsen were here to see this.
“Hi, I’m Tim. Tim Watson. I owe you a beer as I hear you bought everyone rounds yesterday.” He was about Ben’s age, late twenties, and there was no beard now, just attractive designer stubble, so artful it looked merely the negligent grooming of someone too busy or clever to bother. His hair was dark, longish and tousled, and he wore classic academic glasses, which made him seem innocent and sweet, at the same time as thoughtful and studious. It was a neat trick. He was nothing like Nikolas. Ben leant forward, accepting the beer and offered hand. “Jamie Lancaster. You’ll probably dump that beer on my head when you find out who I am.”
“Oh, I know who you are, Jaime. You’re our badger murderer.” The disarming smile he gave Ben was so unlike what he was used to being given by someone else that Ben decided there and then Tim would indeed be his way into the group. In fact, he decided that Tim needed very careful handling, preferably in a soft bed with a good fucking to follow—after a few beers and getting to know each other, of course. Yeah. No ghosts to resurrect here. This man was vibrant, cute, and clearly pleased with Ben. This is what the Danish bastard wanted? Well, this is what the Danish bastard was going to get—or Ben was going to get…
He returned the smile, playing his role. He wanted to snag the guy’s collar and lead him into the bathroom, push him into a cubicle and work off his anger. Resurrect ghosts? He’d resurrect something just fine with this cute man. He was feeling nicely resurrected already. He took a long drink of his beer. “It’s just a job, mate. If I had a choice, I’d rather shoot the fat prick who came by today.” Nikolas certainly wasn’t fat, and Ben wasn’t actually talking about his boss, but the rest of the sentiment applied to the cold bastard very nicely. “My dad voted bloody labour his whole life, and that fuck stood discussing how easy it would be to shoot the poor bloody buggers through the bars of the cages! At least in Afghanistan we shot things that shot back.”
“You sound…pissed off.”
“Oh, I’m pissed off.” Only not with this, but with a fucking bastard who wants me to…“Pissed off, mate, doesn’t even begin to cover it.” He wanted to replay that last little scene in the snow and say something cutting and cruel instead of just standing there like a broken-hearted twelve-year-old girl. Fuck the Danish tosser! He waved toward the bar. “I know a perfect cure though. Another?”
Tim nodded. “But come and join us, Jaime.”
Ben laid a hand gently on Tim’s shoulder as he passed to the bar. “I’m very happy where I am, and I want you to explain to me why I shouldn’t shoot those little snuffling buggers next week.”
Had Ben ever moved in academic circles, he might have been more circumspect making such an offer. Tim Watson did explain in vast and intricate detail why culling of badgers would have no effect on the spread of bovine TB, how the scientific community had a vested interest in supporting and propagating spurious scientific research, and then why animal rights had become such an issue in the UK. Ben watched Tim’s lips moving beneath the dark stubble and felt his groin ache at the thought of parting them with his tongue—or something else. He watched the brightness of the deep blue eyes twinkling with warmth behind the glasses, playing in his mind the scene when he would remove the frames and kiss slowly over the lowered lids. These eyes weren’t like a seductive peat bog, whisky in cut-glass crystal—things a man could be lost in forever—they were velvet blue, something to wrap up in and keep safe.
He listened intently to the man’s voice, the melodic Englishness—no mangled vowels or odd inflections here. He pictured himself running his fingers in the long, dark curls and snagging the man into an embrace of skin and hair and flesh and warmth, not a vicious interplay of rivals, cold edges and harsh reality. He’d never once touched Nikolas’s hair except in passing as you do while rolling and fucking and fighting for dominance. He pictured himself showering with Tim after sex, the laughter, the smell of soap and the sting of shampoo in eyes. He wanted to wash Tim’s hair, rubbing it up and messing it around.
But then he remembered the feel of Nikolas’s fingers in his hair when he’d dried him after the shower, and it all came tumbling down around him—all his anger nothing more than one of those insubstantial bubbles Nikolas had rubbed out of his hair. Misery twisted in his gut once more. He took a long swallow of beer, sensed something change in the atmosphere, and stared at the man opposite. “What?”
“Have you actually heard a word I’ve said, Jaime?” Tim smiled to soften the implied accusation.
Ben hung his head sheepishly. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m a bit distracted tonight.”
“Girlfriend troubles?”
Ben took a drink. Sometimes fate handed you opportunities on a plate. “I wish. I sometimes think girls would be so much bloody easier than men.” He saw the surprise and quick pleasure flick over Tim’s face. “You married, Tim?”
Tim shook his head. “I, err…I live with someone. John. He works at the university, too. He’s an antiquarian.”
“Huh. That sounds painful or boring. I’m not sure which. You been together long?”
“Years. He taught me.”
“That legal?”
“We didn’t care either way. So, have you just broken up with someone?”
Ben felt like shit. He wanted to do really, really bad things to Sir Nikolas fucking Mikkelsen—things he actually knew how to do as well—but he wasn’t unprofessional and wasn’t about to talk about his boss here and now. He felt like even more of a shit when he shamelessly used Nate and the fire, making out his mood and present dislocation with life were due to that. And it shocked him to realise, as he talked about Nate, that this was actually easier and less painful to talk about and hurt him less than Nikolas’s rejection…than the fact that Nikolas had stood in a snow-covered field and told him to sleep with another man…that Nikolas had so little feeling for him that he was willing for Ben to…For the first time, the emotion he’d been unable and unwilling to examine became very clear to Ben…he was in love. It was as simple and as complicated as that—irrevocably, impossibly in love with a man who barely counted as human, whose whole existence was based on lies built upon lies shored up by falsehood and betrayal. The beer turned sour in his belly, and he realised with something like shock he hadn’t eaten all day. He never forgot to eat. He swallowed deeply. Tim’s eyes widened fractionally. “Toilet’s over there.”
Ben nodded, resisted holding a hand over his mouth, but only just made it to a stall where he brought up the beer in a long, easy vomiting of liquid. As he stood at the mirror, looking at his now less than model-perfect reflection, he wished Nikolas were here to see what he had done to him. On that thought, he brought his foot up and kicked the sink off the wall. One kick, expertly aimed, and all his anger vented. He smoothed his hair, rinsed his mouth in the one remaining sink and straightened. He’d kicked his pathetic love for Nikolas away with that broken porcelain. It was over. He returned to the table and leant down to whisper in Tim’s ear, “You wanna get out of here?”
The man’s eyes flicked over to the other side of the bar. “I should—”
“Tim, I’m not talking about driving you home so I can meet John. I have an unused king-sized bed courtesy of DEFRA, and I’m in the mood to see if your abhorrence of animal experimentation applies to humans as well because, fuck, I want to experiment with you tonight.”
Tim swallowed deeply, his blue eyes like a proverbial deer’s in the spotlight behind his round academic glasses. “I’m not…”
Ben didn’t care what he wasn’t. He was sick of men who were not, not what he wanted them to be, not in love with him. He murmured, “My bike is leaving in one minute. If your car is behind, I’ll go slow enough for you to follow. If it’s not, the next time I see you will probably be over some bloody protest line. And that would be a shame.”
He straightened and walked out of the pub. As he knew it would be, Tim’s Lada was behind him as he eased out onto the country lane. Fifteen minutes later, they were back in his room. Ben was immediately betrayed by a quick thought that he wished Nikolas had been sitting on the end of the bed once more to witness how much he didn’t love him now, but unfortunately he wasn’t. They made it just inside the door before Ben took off Tim’s glasses. Losing them seemed to lose most of Tim’s other defences, too. He shed his corduroy jacket and ripped at Ben’s leather one, dropping them both to the floor. Shirts followed. Tim ran his hands wonderingly over Ben’s ripped, honed, deeply tanned torso. His fingers actually bounced off the ribbed abdominal muscles. He laughed a little self-consciously. “Sorry…” He indicated sadly to his slightly rounded belly. Ben fell to his knees, placing kisses over the soft, warm flesh with unfeigned delight. He was sick—literally spilling his guts in a dirty toilet—from love for a hard, moulded torso; but this one would do him just fine. He undid the belt with haste, lowering the zip, but Tim backed off and pulled him to his feet. He came to Ben’s mouth, kissing him wildly, and it was just as good as Ben had hoped. He wasn’t as tall as Ben, which was good—very good. For once he was not thinking about Nikolas and how perfectly their mouths fit together, how when kissing their groins pressed…
They kissed for a long time, eventually falling onto the bed. Ben’s body was beginning to feel the need for something more—a lot more. In fact, the violent, deeply satisfying sex he had with— Fuck it! Was he thinking about Nikolas again? Fuck!
“What’s wrong?”
Ben rolled onto his back.
“It’s Nathan, isn’t it? I’m so sorry, Jaime. It takes a long time to get over something like that. Don’t sweat it.”
Ben felt like something spewed from the devil’s backside, but he nodded to the convenient lie. “It’s not just him. It’s the fucking job.” And how true was that when you were inappropriately in love with your married, unattainable boss? But he could be an equally cold bastard and use his more personal emotions to further his professional cause. “If I were you, I’d be doing something more than painting signs. You should take some lessons from history, mate. Direct action. If you’d met that tosser today, poncing around in his brand new Range Rover Sport—Jesus. My dad was still driving a twenty-year-old car when he died.”
“My Lada’s new.” Ben turned his head, and they both spluttered with amusement on the thought of a Lada, however new, being compared to a £100,000 Range Rover. But on that joint laughter, something else got shared. Tim said hesitantly, “You should meet Seamus Mafferty. He thinks like you. He was…well, he doesn’t talk much about his past, him or his brother, but I get the impression he’d not stop short of a bit of direct action.”
“What about you?”
Tim was quiet for a moment then said, “I’ve done some things I’m not proud of. I think I used to be angrier, more militant. But recently I’ve been thinking about what it means to live an ethical life. Becoming like your enemy, however much you believe in your cause, must be unethical. I can’t live like that.”
This was beyond Ben’s comprehension. He’d spent his whole adult life killing as ordered, either in the army or the department, and had never once felt any guilt about what he did. “This Seamus, was he there tonight?” He knew he hadn’t been, but it was necessary to feign ignorance.
“He said he had something on. But he’s keen to meet you. I didn’t actually mean you should follow through on your thoughts, Jaime. I couldn’t support even knowing you were about to do anything that would break the law.”
“Would it be unethical or illegal for me to tell you to take off your jeans?”
“No, but if I comply, I will be a hypocrite, something I have always despised. I am hardly living up to the ethical principles I espouse being here with you now.”
“You talk too much. Take off your jeans.”
Tim smiled sadly and began to slide them down his hips. “Have you got…?”
Ben raised his eyebrows expectantly. When Tim didn’t elucidate, he asked impatiently, “What? Have I got what?”
“Err…condoms?”
“Condoms?”
Tim frowned. “Rubbers? John—”
“I know what fucking condoms are.” In a flash, his mind was back to a billiard table, to a leather saddle in a stable, a horse blanket on a beach one summer, wildly expensive hotel rooms Nikolas always paid for…everywhere and everything they’d done—without condoms. They’d never needed to even ask if they were needed, never had a lack of trust or lack of immediate understanding between them. Is that why they never spoke? They genuinely had no need for words? Had he actually found the one person in the world he was meant to be with? But Nikolas didn’t share his feelings. Or did he…? I have my orders—I have had my fucking orders made very clear to me all morning.
“I think it’s best if I go, Jaime. I’m sorry. I don’t think this is what either of us really wants.”
“Hey, no…” He tried to recover some of the momentum and pulled Tim back to him, but the other man pushed him off and gathered his shirt and jacket from the floor. “I really like you, Jaime.”
“Yeah, thanks for that, mate. That’s a big comfort.”
“So, I’ll see you tomorrow? To meet with Seamus?”
In the back of Ben’s mind, as he listened to Tim outlining a proposed meet, he knew this whole scene tonight only added to the veracity of his cover. He couldn’t imagine any other agent being as inept and unwilling to trap his target as he was tonight. No one could possibly suspect him of honey-trapping Tim Watson. It was embarrassing. You couldn’t fake the self-pitying shit he’d laid on this poor guy tonight. He didn’t comment on the proposals and nodded sourly. “Whatever.”